Frightfest 2017 Spotlight: Tragedy Girls

It’s finally August, which means the countdown toFrightfest 2017 is on. In the weeks leading up to the festival, Joey Keogh will be taking a look at some of the most anticipated movies on this year’s jam-packed schedule. With the festival a day away, the final installment is on Tragedy Girls.

It’s been an awfully long time since we’ve been gifted a genuinely great slasher movie which, for super-fans such as myself, is a travesty. The last one of note was probably Scream 4, which came out a whopping six years ago. Last year’s Frightfest gave us the blood-soaked, Amsterdam-set gorefest The Windmill Massacre, a movie that boasted a killer in clogs and some impressively gooey deaths (I loved it).

This year, the festival looks to (hopefully) deliver us another must-watch slasher in the form of Tragedy Girls, the third feature from writer-director Tyler MacIntyre (Patchwork, Flicker) that’s been tantalisingly described as “Heathers meets Scream” (yeah, count us in). A teen horror-comedy, it stars Deadpool’s Brianna Hildebrand and X-Men: Apocalypse‘s Alexandra Shipp as BFFs/wannabe serial killers.

The rest of the cast is pretty impressive too, with big names like Josh Hutcherson (who starred in the underrated high school-set slasher Detention), Craig Robinson, The Strain‘s Kevin Durand and Jack Quaid rounding it out. Not to mention the poster, which was revealed at the movie’s well-received SXSW premiere back in March, is seriously cool. Like, wear it on a T-shirt cool.

The official synopsis for Tragedy Girls is as follows:

Sadie and McKayla are two social-media obsessed best friends who will stop at nothing to build their online following. The self-titled “Tragedy Girls” kidnap Lowell, an unambitious local serial killer, and force him to mentor them into modern horror legends by committing murders to blow up on the internet. As the bodies fall, the girls become national news and panic in their small town hits a fever pitch — just then, Lowell escapes! Now with the local Sheriff closing in and their relationship on the rocks, the girls must rethink their plan before they find themselves the latest victims of their own killing spree

The flick did well at SXSW, standing at a whopping 93% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, with BD claiming it “leaves a hilarious and bloody mess” and that it “earns a like, a retweet and a follow.” Variety went even further, marking Tragedy Girls out as “one of the freshest, funniest horror-comedies to emerge in Scream’s long wake”. High praise indeed.

Check out the trailer for Tragedy Girls below, and sound off in the comments about whether you think this is a real threat to Scream‘s throne or just another wannabe in achingly cool clothing. Stay tuned to the site for all the must-know Frightfest 2017 news straight from the festival.

Tragedy Girls closes Frightfest 2017 at 8.30PM on Monday, 28th August 2017 in the Main Screen and 9PM on the Arrow Video Screen.The full festival line-up of films is available on their official site, where all ticketing information can also be found. Wicked Horror will once again be there, to bring you all the must-read reviews and exclusive interviews from this year’s festival. So stay tuned.

Slasher fanatic Joey Keogh has been writing since she could hold a pen, and watching horror movies even longer. Aside from making a little home for herself at Wicked Horror, Joey also writes for Birth.Movies.Death, The List, and Vague Visages among others. Her actual home boasts Halloween decorations all year round. Hello to Jason Isaacs.